Chapter 37

The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable
antiquity, moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep
buried in a wood. I had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often
spoke of it, and sometimes went there. His father had purchased the
estate for the sake of the game covers. He would have let the
house, but could find no tenant, in consequence of its ineligible
and insalubrious site. Ferndean then remained uninhabited and
unfurnished, with the exception of some two or three rooms fitted up
for the accommodation of the squire when he went there in the season
to shoot.

To this house I came just ere dark on an evening marked by the
characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small
penetrating rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having
dismissed the chaise and driver with the double remuneration I had
promised. Even when within a very short distance of the manor-
house, you could see nothing of it, so thick and dark grew the
timber of the gloomy wood about it. Iron gates between granite
pillars showed me where to enter, and passing through them, I found
myself at once in the twilight of close-ranked trees. There was a
grass-grown track descending the forest aisle between hoar and
knotty shafts and under branched arches. I followed it, expecting
soon to reach the dwelling; but it stretched on and on, it would far
and farther: no sign of habitation or grounds was visible.

I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The
darkness of natural as well as of sylvan dusk gathered over me. I
looked round in search of another road. There was none: all was
interwoven stem, columnar trunk, dense summer foliage--no opening
anywhere.

I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little;
presently I beheld a railing, then the house--scarce, by this dim
light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its
decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I
stood amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept
away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a
broad gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy
frame of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its
front; the windows were latticed and narrow: the front door was
narrow too, one step led up to it. The whole looked, as the host of
the Rochester Arms had said, "quite a desolate spot." It was as
still as a church on a week-day: the pattering rain on the forest
leaves was the only sound audible in its vicinage.

"Can there be life here?" I asked.

Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement--that
narrow front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue
from the grange.

It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on
the step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to
feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised him--it
was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.

I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him--to
examine him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible. It was a
sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by
pain. I had no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation,
my step from hasty advance.

His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his
port was still erect, his heir was still raven black; nor were his
features altered or sunk: not in one year's space, by any sorrow,
could his athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime
blighted. But in his countenance I saw a change: that looked
desperate and brooding--that reminded me of some wronged and
fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen
woe. The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has
extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson.

And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity?--if
you do, you little know me. A soft hope blest with my sorrow that
soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those
lips so sternly sealed beneath it: but not yet. I would not accost
him yet.

He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards
the grass-plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he paused,
as if he knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and opened
his eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky,
and toward the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him was
void darkness. He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the
mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by
touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy
still; for the trees were some yards off where he stood. He
relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet and
mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this
moment John approached him from some quarter.

"Will you take my arm, sir?" he said; "there is a heavy shower
coming on: had you not better go in?"

"Let me alone," was the answer.

John withdrew without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried
to walk about: vainly,--all was too uncertain. He groped his way
back to the house, and, re-entering it, closed the door.

I now drew near and knocked: John's wife opened for me. "Mary," I
said, "how are you?"

She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her
hurried "Is it really you, miss, come at this late hour to this
lonely place?" I answered by taking her hand; and then I followed
her into the kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire. I
explained to them, in few words, that I had heard all which had
happened since I left Thornfield, and that I was come to see Mr.
Rochester. I asked John to go down to the turn-pike-house, where I
had dismissed the chaise, and bring my trunk, which I had left
there: and then, while I removed my bonnet and shawl, I questioned
Mary as to whether I could be accommodated at the Manor House for
the night; and finding that arrangements to that effect, though
difficult, would not be impossible, I informed her I should stay.
Just at this moment the parlour-bell rang.

"When you go in," said I, "tell your master that a person wishes to
speak to him, but do not give my name."

"I don't think he will see you," she answered; "he refuses
everybody."

When she returned, I inquired what he had said. "You are to send in
your name and your business," she replied. She then proceeded to
fill a glass with water, and place it on a tray, together with
candles.

"Is that what he rang for?" I asked.

"Yes: he always has candles brought in at dark, though he is
blind."

"Give the tray to me; I will carry it in."

I took it from her hand: she pointed me out the parlour door. The
tray shook as I held it; the water spilt from the glass; my heart
struck my ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me, and shut
it behind me.

This parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low
in the grate; and, leaning over it, with his head supported against
the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of
the room. His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the
way, and coiled up as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden upon.
Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in: then he jumped up with a
yelp and a whine, and bounded towards me: he almost knocked the
tray from my hands. I set it on the table; then patted him, and
said softly, "Lie down!" Mr. Rochester turned mechanically to SEE
what the commotion was: but as he SAW nothing, he returned and
sighed.

"Give me the water, Mary," he said.

I approached him with the now only half-filled glass; Pilot followed
me, still excited.

"What is the matter?" he inquired.

"Down, Pilot!" I again said. He checked the water on its way to his
lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down.
"This is you, Mary, is it not?"

"Mary is in the kitchen," I answered.

He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I
stood, he did not touch me. "Who is this? Who is this?" he
demanded, trying, as it seemed, to SEE with those sightless eyes--
unavailing and distressing attempt! "Answer me--speak again!" he
ordered, imperiously and aloud.

"Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was
in the glass," I said.

"WHO is it? WHAT is it? Who speaks?"

"Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this
evening," I answered.

"Great God!--what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has
seized me?"

"My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her
features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a
dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her
once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus--and
felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me."

"Which I never will, sir, from this day."

"Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an
empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned--my life dark,
lonely, hopeless--my soul athirst and forbidden to drink--my heart
famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my
arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before
you: but kiss me before you go--embrace me, Jane."

"There, sir--and there!"'

I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes--I
swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that too. He suddenly
seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this
seized him.

"It is you--is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?"

"I am."

"And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you
are not a pining outcast amongst strangers?"

"No, sir! I am an independent woman now."

"Independent! What do you mean, Jane?"

"My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds."

"Ah! this is practical--this is real!" he cried: "I should never
dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so
animating and piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered
heart; it puts life into it.--What, Janet! Are you an independent
woman? A rich woman?"

"If you won't let me live with you, I can build a house of my own
close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when
you want company of an evening."

"But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will
look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind
lameter like me?"

"I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own
mistress."

"And you will stay with me?"

"Certainly--unless you object. I will be your neighbour, your
nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your
companion--to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to
wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so
melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long
as I live."

He replied not: he seemed serious--abstracted; he sighed; he half-
opened his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I felt a
little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped
conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my
inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea that
he wished and would ask me to be his wife: an expectation, not the
less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would
claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect escaping
him and his countenance becoming more overcast, I suddenly
remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing
the fool unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from his
arms--but he eagerly snatched me closer.

"No--no--Jane; you must not go. No--I have touched you, heard you,
felt the comfort of your presence--the sweetness of your
consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in
myself--I must have you. The world may laugh--may call me absurd,
selfish--but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it
will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame."

"Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so."

"Yes--but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I
understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be
about my hand and chair--to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for
you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt
you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought to
suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but
fatherly feelings for you: do you think so? Come--tell me."

"I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your
nurse, if you think it better."

"But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young--you must
marry one day."

"I don't care about being married."

"You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to
make you care--but--a sightless block!"

He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more
cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an
insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty
with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I
resumed a livelier vein of conversation.

"It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting
his thick and long uncut locks; "for I see you are being
metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a
'faux air' of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is
certain: your hair reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your
nails are grown like birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed."

"On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing the
mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. "It is a mere
stump--a ghastly sight! Don't you think so, Jane?"

"It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes--and the scar
of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger
of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you."

"I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my
cicatrised visage."

"Did you? Don't tell me so--lest I should say something disparaging
to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a
better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there
is a good fire?"

"Yes; with the right eye I see a glow--a ruddy haze."

"And you see the candles?"

"Very dimly--each is a luminous cloud."

"Can you see me?"

"No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you."

"When do you take supper?"

"I never take supper."

"But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry: so are you, I
daresay, only you forget."

Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I
prepared him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were
excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper,
and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no
repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at
perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed
either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It
brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presence I
thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles
played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his lineaments
softened and warmed.

After supper, he began to ask me many questions, of where I had
been, what I had been doing, how I had found him out; but I gave him
only very partial replies: it was too late to enter into
particulars that night. Besides, I wished to touch no deep-
thrilling chord--to open no fresh well of emotion in his heart: my
sole present aim was to cheer him. Cheered, as I have said, he was:
and yet but by fits. If a moment's silence broke the conversation,
he would turn restless, touch me, then say, "Jane."

"You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?"

"I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester."

"Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly
rise on my lone hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of
water from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a
question, expecting John's wife to answer me, and your voice spoke
at my ear."

"Because I had come in, in Mary's stead, with the tray."

"And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with
you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged
on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night
in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go
out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow,
and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again.
Yes: for her restoration I longed, far more than for that of my
lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves
me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear
I shall find her no more."

A commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own
disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for
him in this frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows,
and remarked that they were scorched, and that I would apply
something which would make them grow as broad and black as ever.

"Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit,
when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me--passing like a
shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining
afterwards undiscoverable?

"Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir?"

"What for, Jane?"

"Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather
alarming, when I examine you close at hand: you talk of my being a
fairy, but I am sure, you are more like a brownie."

"Am I hideous, Jane?"

"Very, sir: you always were, you know."

"Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever you
have sojourned."

"Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred
times better people; possessed of ideas and views you never
entertained in your life: quite more refined and exalted."

"Who the deuce have you been with?"

"If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of your
head; and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of my
substantiality."

"Who have you been with, Jane?"

"You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir; you must wait till
to-morrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort of
security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it.
By the bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with only a glass
of water then: I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing of
fried ham."

"You mocking changeling--fairy-born and human-bred! You make me
feel as I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had
you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without
the aid of the harp."

"There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I'll leave you:
I have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am
tired. Good night."

"Just one word, Jane: were there only ladies in the house where you
have been?"

I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs. "A
good idea!" I thought with glee. "I see I have the means of
fretting him out of his melancholy for some time to come."

Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering from
one room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the
question: "Is Miss Eyre here?" Then: "Which room did you put her
into? Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything;
and when she will come down."

I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast.
Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he
discovered my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the
subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He
sat in his chair--still, but not at rest: expectant evidently; the
lines of now habitual sadness marking his strong features. His
countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be re-lit--
and alas! it was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of
animated expression: he was dependent on another for that office!
I had meant to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the
strong man touched my heart to the quick: still I accosted him with
what vivacity I could.

"It is a bright, sunny morning, sir," I said. "The rain is over and
gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have a walk
soon."

I had wakened the glow: his features beamed.

"Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not
gone: not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing
high over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than
the rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in
my Jane's tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent
one): all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence."

The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence;
just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to
entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be
lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with
preparing breakfast.

Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the
wet and wild wood into some cheerful fields: I described to him how
brilliantly green they were; how the flowers and hedges looked
refreshed; how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a seat for
him in a hidden and lovely spot, a dry stump of a tree; nor did I
refuse to let him, when seated, place me on his knee. Why should I,
when both he and I were happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside
us: all was quiet. He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his
arms -

"Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered
you had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you;
and, after examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken
no money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl
necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket; your
trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for the
bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and
penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now."

Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last
year. I softened considerably what related to the three days of
wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have
been to inflict unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated
his faithful heart deeper than I wished.

I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of
making my way: I should have told him my intention. I should have
confided in him: he would never have forced me to be his mistress.
Violent as he had seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far
too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he would
have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss
in return, rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the
wide world. I had endured, he was certain, more than I had
confessed to him.

"Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short," I
answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received
at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, &c.
The accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in
due order. Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in frequently in
the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately
taken up.

"This St. John, then, is your cousin?"

"Yes."

"You have spoken of him often: do you like him?"

"He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him."

"A good man. Does that mean a respectable well-conducted man of
fifty? Or what does it mean?"

"St John was only twenty-nine, sir."

"'Jeune encore,' as the French say. Is he a person of low stature,
phlegmatic, and plain. A person whose goodness consists rather in
his guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue."

"He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives
to perform."

"But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means well: but
you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?"

"He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His
brain is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous."

"Is he an able man, then?"

"Truly able."

"A thoroughly educated man?"

"St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar."

"His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste?--priggish and
parsonic?"

"I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste,
they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike."

"His appearance,--I forget what description you gave of his
appearance;--a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white
neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?"

"St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with
blue eyes, and a Grecian profile."

(Aside.) "Damn him!"--(To me.) "Did you like him, Jane?"

"Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before."

I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had
got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it
gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not,
therefore, immediately charm the snake.

"Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?"
was the next somewhat unexpected observation.

"Why not, Mr. Rochester?"

"The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too
overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a
graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,--tall, fair,
blue-eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a
Vulcan,--a real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind and
lame into the bargain."

"I never thought of it, before; but you certainly are rather like
Vulcan, sir."

"Well, you can leave me, ma'am: but before you go" (and he retained
me by a firmer grasp than ever), "you will be pleased just to answer
me a question or two." He paused.

"What questions, Mr. Rochester?"

Then followed this cross-examination.

"St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were
his cousin?"

"Yes."

"You would often see him? He would visit the school sometimes?"

"Daily."

"He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever,
for you are a talented creature!"

"He approved of them--yes."

"He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to
find? Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary."

"I don't know about that."

"You had a little cottage near the school, you say: did he ever
come there to see you?"

"Now and then?"

"Of an evening?"

"Once or twice."

A pause.

"How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the
cousinship was discovered?"

"Five months."

"Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?"

"Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near the
window, and we by the table."

"Did he study much?"

"A good deal."

"What?"

"Hindostanee."

"And what did you do meantime?"

"I learnt German, at first."

"Did he teach you?"

"He did not understand German."

"Did he teach you nothing?"

"A little Hindostanee."

"Rivers taught you Hindostanee?"

"Yes, sir."

"And his sisters also?"

"No."

"Only you?"

"Only me."

"Did you ask to learn?"

"No."

"He wished to teach you?"

"Yes."

A second pause.

"Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?"

"He intended me to go with him to India."

"Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry
him?"

"He asked me to marry him."

"That is a fiction--an impudent invention to vex me."

"I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than
once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be."

"Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say
the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my
knee, when I have given you notice to quit?"

"Because I am comfortable there."

"No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not
with me: it is with this cousin--this St. John. Oh, till this
moment, I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she
loved me even when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much
bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over
our separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she
was loving another! But it is useless grieving. Jane, leave me:
go and marry Rivers."

"Shake me off, then, sir,--push me away, for I'll not leave you of
my own accord."

"Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it
sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I
forget that you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool--go--"

"Where must I go, sir?"

"Your own way--with the husband you have chosen."

"Who is that?"

"You know--this St. John Rivers."

"He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I do
not love him. He loves (as he CAN love, and that is not as you
love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me
only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary's wife,
which she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe;
and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not
happy at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence
for me--no fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me; not even
youth--only a few useful mental points.--Then I must leave you, sir,
to go to him?"

I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my
blind but beloved master. He smiled.

"What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters
between you and Rivers?"

"Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease
you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better
than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how
much I DO love you, you would be proud and content. All my heart is
yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were
fate to exile the rest of me from your presence for ever."

I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking,
and wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his
face a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and
trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled.

"I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in
Thornfield orchard," he remarked ere long. "And what right would
that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with
freshness?"

"You are no ruin, sir--no lightning-struck tree: you are green and
vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them
or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as
they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because
your strength offers them so safe a prop."

Again he smiled: I gave him comfort.

"You speak of friends, Jane?" he asked.

"Yes, of friends," I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew I
meant more than friends, but could not tell what other word to
employ. He helped me.

"Ah! Jane. But I want a wife."

"Do you, sir?"

"Yes: is it news to you?"

"Of course: you said nothing about it before."

"Is it unwelcome news?"

"That depends on circumstances, sir--on your choice."

"Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision."

"Choose then, sir--HER WHO LOVES YOU BEST."

"I will at least choose--HER I LOVE BEST. Jane, will you marry me?"

"Yes, sir."

"A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?"

"Yes, sir."

"A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to
wait on?"

"Yes, sir."

"Truly, Jane?"

"Most truly, sir."

"Oh! my darling! God bless you and reward you!"

"Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life--if ever I
thought a good thought--if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless
prayer--if ever I wished a righteous wish,--I am rewarded now. To
be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth."

"Because you delight in sacrifice."

"Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for
content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value--to
press my lips to what I love--to repose on what I trust: is that to
make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice."

"And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to overlook my
deficiencies."

"Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can
really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud
independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver
and protector."

"Hitherto I have hated to be helped--to be led: henceforth, I feel
I shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into a
hireling's, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane's little
fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of
servants; but Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane
suits me: do I suit her?"

"To the finest fibre of my nature, sir."

"The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we
must be married instantly."

He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising.

"We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the
licence to get--then we marry."

"Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from
its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me
look at your watch."

"Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I
have no use for it."

"It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, sir. Don't you feel
hungry?"

"The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never mind
fine clothes and jewels, now: all that is not worth a fillip."

"The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir. The breeze is still:
it is quite hot."

"Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this moment
fastened round my bronze scrag under my cravat? I have worn it
since the day I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her."

"We will go home through the wood: that will be the shadiest way."

He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me.

"Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart
swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now.
He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges,
but far more wisely. I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent
flower--breathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it
from me. I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the
dispensation: instead of bending to the decree, I defied it.
Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I
was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. HIS
chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for
ever. You know I was proud of my strength: but what is it now,
when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its
weakness? Of late, Jane--only--only of late--I began to see and
acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience
remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I
began sometimes to pray: very brief prayers they were, but very
sincere.

"Some days since: nay, I can number them--four; it was last Monday
night, a singular mood came over me: one in which grief replaced
frenzy--sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression that
since I could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that night--
perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o'clock--ere I retired
to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed good to
Him, I might soon be taken from this life, and admitted to that
world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.

"I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open:
it soothed me to feel the balmy night-air; though I could see no
stars and only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a
moon. I longed for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with
soul and flesh! I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if
I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might
not soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I
endured, I acknowledged--that I could scarcely endure more, I
pleaded; and the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke
involuntarily from my lips in the words--'Jane! Jane! Jane!'"

"Did you speak these words aloud?"

"I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought
me mad: I pronounced them with such frantic energy."

"And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?"

"Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the
strange point. You will think me superstitious,--some superstition
I have in my blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true--
true at least it is that I heard what I now relate.

"As I exclaimed 'Jane! Jane! Jane!' a voice--I cannot tell whence
the voice came, but I know whose voice it was--replied, 'I am
coming: wait for me;' and a moment after, went whispering on the
wind the words--'Where are you?'

"I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened
to my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to express.
Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls
dull, and dies unreverberating. 'Where are you?' seemed spoken
amongst mountains; for I heard a hill-sent echo repeat the words.
Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow:
I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane were
meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were,
at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul
wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were your accents-
-as certain as I live--they were yours!"

Reader, it was on Monday night--near midnight--that I too had
received the mysterious summons: those were the very words by which
I replied to it. I listened to Mr. Rochester's narrative, but made
no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and
inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything,
my tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression
on the mind of my hearer: and that mind, yet from its sufferings
too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural.
I kept these things then, and pondered them in my heart.

"You cannot now wonder," continued my master, "that when you rose
upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing
you any other than a mere voice and vision, something that would
melt to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and
mountain echo had melted before. Now, I thank God! I know it to be
otherwise. Yes, I thank God!"

He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from
his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in
mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible.

"I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered
mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead
henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!"

Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand,
held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder:
being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop
and guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward.